Carolingian illumination

Carolingian illumination refers to the book illumination that originated in the Frankish Empire from the end of the 8th to the late 9th century. While the earlier Merovingian illumination was purely monastic, Carolingian illumination originated in the courts of the Frankish kings and the residences of important bishops.

The starting point was the court school of Charlemagne at the Royal Palace in Aachen, to which the manuscripts of the Ada group are assigned. At the same time and probably in the same place existed the palace school, whose artists were influenced by Byzantine art. The codices of this school are also called the Vienna Coronation Gospel group after their leading manuscript. Despite all stylistic differences, both schools of painting have in common a direct engagement with the formal language of late antiquity and a striving for a previously unknown clarity of page image. After the death of Charlemagne, the center of book illumination shifted to Reims, Tours and Metz. While the court school dominated in Charlemagne's time, the works of the palace school were more widely received in later centers of book art.

The heyday of Carolingian book illumination ended in the late 9th century. In the late Carolingian period, a Franco-Saxon school developed, which increasingly adopted forms of older insular book illumination, before a new era began with Ottonian book illumination at the end of the 10th century.

Basics of Carolingian illumination

Time and geographical framework

The assignment of Carolingian art to a specific period is inconsistent: sometimes it is regarded as a separate art period, more often however it is grouped together with other styles of the 5th to 11th centuries as early medieval art or with Ottonian art as pre- Romanesque, and sometimes even included in the Romanesque period as early Romanesque. Carolingian art was strongly tied to the respective ruling house and restricted to the Carolingian domain, i.e. to the Frankish Empire. Art regions that lay outside this area are not counted as Carolingian art. A special case is the Lombard Empire, which Charlemagne conquered in 773/774, but which continued its own cultural traditions that had a strong influence on Carolingian art. Conversely, the impulses of the Carolingian Renaissance also had an impact in Italy, particularly in Rome.

The election of Pepin the Younger as King of the Franks in 751 marked the beginning of the Carolingian dynasty, but independent Carolingian art only began under Charlemagne, who had been sole ruler of the Frankish Empire since 771 and was crowned emperor in 800. The first magnificent manuscript, commissioned by Charlemagne between 781 and 783, was the Godescalc Evangelistary. After the death of Louis the Pious, Charlemagne's successor, the empire was divided into three parts, West and East Frankish, and Lotharingia, by the Treaty of Verdun in 843. Lotharingia underwent several further partitions in the following decades, with some areas falling to the West and East Frankish Empires, while others became independent kingdoms and duchies in Lorraine, Burgundy and Italy.

With the death of Louis the Child in 911, the East Frankish Carolingian line died out. Conrad the Younger from the Conradine dynasty was elected as the new king. After his death, the great men of Franconia and Saxony elected Henry I as East Frankish king in 919. With the transfer of the royal title to the Saxon Liudolfings, later known as the Ottonians, the focus of art production shifted to East Francia, where Ottonian art developed a distinct character of its own. In the West Frankish kingdom, after the death of Louis the Lazy in 987, the royal title passed to Hugh Capet and thus to the Capetian dynasty. However, the flowering of Carolingian art in the entire Frankish region ended by the end of the 9th century; the later sparse and less important works mostly drew on older traditions.

Artists and clients

While in the Merovingian period, monasteries were exclusively responsible for book production, the Carolingian Renaissance originated at the court of Charlemagne. The Godescalc Evangelistary, the Dagulf Psalter, and an unadorned manuscript attest to Charlemagne's commissioning in dedicatory poems and colophons. Even under Charlemagne's successors, short-lived workshops were tied to the courts of the Carolingian emperors and kings, or to those of important bishops closely associated with the royal court. Only the monastery of Tours remained productive for decades until its destruction in 853.

Most liturgical books were intended for the royal court. Some of the most precious codices served as gifts of honor; for example, the Dagulf Psalter was planned as a gift from Charlemagne to Pope Adrian I, although it was never handed over because of Hadrian's death. A third group of manuscripts was produced for the most important monasteries of the empire in order to bring the religious and cultural impulses emanating from the imperial court into the empire. The Gospel Book of Saint-Riquier, for example, was intended for Charlemagne's son-in-law Angilbert, the lay abbot of Saint-Riquier, and in 827 Louis the Pious donated a Gospel Book (Evangeliary of Soissons) from Charlemagne's court school to the church of Saint-Médard in Soissons. Conversely, the Touronian monastery under Abbot Vivian gave the Vivian Bible to Charles the Bald in 846, who probably donated it to the Cathedral of Metz in 869/870.

Few early medieval book illustrators can be identified by name. In an illustrated manuscript of Terence, perhaps from Aachen, one of the three painters, Adelricus, hid his name in the gable ornament of a miniature. According to his own statements, the learned Fulda monk Brun Candidus, who had spent some time at the Aachen court school under Einhard, painted the west apse of the Ratgar Basilica, consecrated in 819, above the Boniface sarcophagus in the Fulda monastery. This could have given him an important role in the Fulda painting school of the first half of the 9th century. Hypothetical, but not unlikely, is therefore that he also worked as a book illustrator and illustrated the life of Abbot Eigil, which he himself wrote. 

More often than the painters, the scribe of a manuscript named himself in a dedicatory poem or in the colophon. The Godescalc Evangelistary and the Dagulf Psalter were named after the scribes of the manuscripts. Both refer to themselves as Capellani, which suggests that the scriptorium of Charlemagne's court school was connected to the chancellery. In the Codex aureus of St. Emmeram, the monks Liuthard and Beringer name themselves as scribes. The smaller a scriptorium was and the lower the demands of the book painting, the more likely it is that the scribe also carried out the illumination. 

The book in Carolingian times and its tradition

The books, produced in a labor-intensive process using expensive materials, were an extremely valuable luxury item. All Carolingian manuscripts are written on parchment; cheaper paper only reached Europe in the course of the 13th century. Particularly prestigious, magnificent manuscripts, such as the Godescalc Evangelistary, the Soissons Gospel Book, the Coronation Gospel Book, the Lorsch Gospel Book and the Bible of St. Paul, were written in gold and silver ink on purple-dyed parchment. Their covers were decorated with ivory panels set in goldsmith's work decorated with precious stones. The miniatures were dominated by opaque painting, while pen and ink drawings, usually colored, were rarer.

Around 8,000 manuscripts from the 8th and 9th centuries have survived. The extent of the book losses due to Norman invasions, wars, iconoclasm, fires and other violent causes, or to the disregard or reuse of parchment as a raw material, is difficult to estimate. Extant book lists provide information about the size of some of the largest libraries. For example, the book holdings of the monastery of St. Gallen rose from 284 to 428 in the Carolingian period, the monastery of Lorsch possessed 590 manuscripts in the 9th century, and the monastery library in Murbach 335. Testaments provide an idea of the size of private libraries. The 200 codices that Angilbert bequeathed to his monastery of Saint-Riquier, including the Saint-Riquier Gospel Book, may have been one of the largest libraries. Eccard of Mâcon bequeathed around twenty books to his heirs. The size of Charlemagne's library, which was sold after his death in accordance with his testamentary dispositions, is not known. The Aachen library contained all the essential tangible works and numerous illuminated manuscripts, including many Roman, Greek, and Byzantine books. 

Most manuscripts were not illuminated at all, and a small number were not very sophisticated. As a rule, only the few major works of Carolingian book illumination find their way into art historical literature. Valuable, magnificent manuscripts – especially liturgical books – always enjoyed preferential treatment. The most exclusive codices were not everyday literature, but belonged to the church treasury as liturgical implements or served primarily representative purposes, as the often minimal signs of wear suggest. Illustrations on the very durable parchment are also well protected from external influences in a closed book, and for a long time the codices were not kept on open shelves, but in chests, and more rarely in lockable cabinets. Thus, relatively large numbers of illustrated manuscripts from the Carolingian period have survived, and many miniatures have survived the past twelve centuries or so in very good condition. Most of the surviving illuminated manuscripts are complete; fragmentary remains are rare. That a significant number of illuminated manuscripts are nevertheless lost is proven by later illustrations, which are the aftereffects of lost originals. In some cases, illuminated codices that no longer exist have been documented, such as a "golden psalter" of Queen Hildegard from the early period of Carolingian illumination. 

The easily melted golden book covers, on the other hand, have only rarely survived the attacks of later times. The ivory plates of the bindings have survived more frequently, but in no case in connection with the codex they originally decorated. The five plates of the Lorsch Gospels are now in the Vatican Museum. At least the lower ivory plate is not a Carolingian work, but a late antique original, as an inscription on its back proves. The only ivory plates that can be dated with certainty are those of the Dagulf Psalter, which are described in detail in its dedicatory poem and could thus be identified with two plates in the Louvre in Paris. Book illumination was closely related to ivory carving. These small-format, easily transportable works of art played an important role as mediators of ancient and Byzantine art. Only a few fragments of large-scale Carolingian sculpture have survived, while works of goldsmithing are somewhat better known. In connection with book painting, the cover of the Codex aureus of St. Emmeram from the court school of Charles the Bald is of particular interest.

Due to the relatively good state of preservation, Carolingian book illumination and small sculptures are of greater importance for art history than those of other periods, since all other art forms from the Carolingian period are extremely poorly preserved. This applies in particular to monumental wall painting, which, as in the later Ottonian and Romanesque periods, was the leading genre of Carolingian painting. It can be assumed that every church and palace were painted with frescoes; However, the minimal surviving remains no longer allow a vivid idea of the former pictorial splendor. Mosaics in the ancient tradition also played a role; for example, the Palatine Chapel in Aachen was decorated with a magnificent dome mosaic. 

Precursors and influences

Merovingian book illumination

The Carolingian Renaissance developed in a pronounced "cultural vacuum", its center being Charlemagne's residence in Aachen. Merovingian book illumination, named after the ruling dynasty in the Frankish Empire that preceded the Carolingians, remained purely ornamental. Initials constructed with ruler and compass, as well as title pictures with arcades and a cross, are almost the only form of illustration. From the 8th century onwards, zoomorphic ornamentation increasingly appeared, becoming so dominant that in manuscripts from the women's monastery of Chelles, for example, entire lines consist exclusively of letters formed by animals. In contrast to contemporaneous insular book illumination with its profuse ornamentation, Merovingian book illumination strove for a clear order of the page. One of the oldest and most productive scriptoria was that of the monastery of Luxeuil, founded in 590 by the Irish monk Columbanus, which was destroyed in 732. The monastery of Corbie, founded in 662, developed its own distinctive style of illustration. Chelles and Laon were other centers of Merovingian book illustration. From the mid-8th century onward, this style was strongly influenced by insular book illumination. A Gospel book from Echternach proves that Irish and Merovingian scribes and illuminators collaborated at this monastery.

Insular book illumination

Until the Carolingian Renaissance, the British Isles were a refuge for Roman and early Christian tradition, which, however, had produced an independent insular style through its mixture with Celtic and Germanic elements. Its sometimes fiercely expressive, ornament-preferring and strictly two-dimensional character ultimately stood in direct opposition to the ancient formal language in its anti-naturalism. Only in exceptional cases did insular book illuminations preserve classical design elements, such as the Codex Amiatinus (South England, around 700) and the Codex Aureus of Stockholm (Canterbury, mid-8th century).

Through the Irish-Scottish mission from Ireland and southern England, the European continent was strongly influenced by insular monastic culture. Throughout France, Germany and Italy, Irish monks founded monasteries in the 6th and 7th centuries, the " Scottish monasteries ". These included Annegray, Luxeuil, St. Gallen, Fulda, Würzburg, St. Emmeram in Regensburg, Trier, Echternach and Bobbio. A second wave of Anglo-Saxon missionary activity followed in the 8th and 9th centuries. This route brought numerous illuminated manuscripts to the mainland, which had a strong influence on the respective regional formal languages, particularly in terms of script and ornamentation. While book production largely came to a standstill in Ireland and England from the end of the 8th century onwards due to Viking raids, book illuminations in the insular tradition continued to be produced on the continent for several decades. Alongside the works of the Carolingian court schools, this branch of tradition remained alive and shaped the Franco-Saxon school in the second half of the 9th century, but the court schools also adopted elements of insular book illumination, especially the initial page.

Reception of antiquity

The return to antiquity was the main characteristic of Carolingian art. The programmatic adaptation of ancient art was consistently oriented toward the late Roman Empire and fit into the fundamental idea known as the renovatio imperii romani, which claimed the legacy of the Roman Empire in all areas. The arts became an integral part of the intellectual movement of the Carolingian Renaissance.

Of great importance for the reception of ancient art was the study of original works, which were still numerous, especially in Rome. For the artists and scholars of the north, who did not know Italy firsthand, works of late antique book illumination played an important intermediary role, because apart from small sculptures, only books reached the workshops and libraries north of the Alps directly. There is evidence that the scriptorium in Tours also used ancient originals as models. For example, figures from Vergilius Vaticanus, which was in the possession of the Touronian library, were traced and can be found in the Bibles. Other ancient manuscripts in the possession of the important library were the Cotton Genesis and the Leo Bible from the 5th century. Many lost illustrated books of late antiquity can only be understood today through Carolingian copies.

Byzantium

In addition to the original works, Byzantine book illumination conveyed the ancient heritage, which had been productively continued there in a largely unbroken tradition. However, the Byzantine Iconoclastic Controversy, which suppressed the religious cult of images between 726 and 843 and led to a wave of image destruction, marked an important turning point for the continuity of the tradition. With the Exarchate of Ravenna, Byzantium maintained an important bridgehead in the West until the 8th century. Artists who had fled Byzantium to escape persecution due to the ban on images also promoted Roman art. Charlemagne attracted artists from Byzantine-influenced Italy to his court, who created the works of the palace school.

Italy

Italy was not only important as a mediator of classical and Byzantine art. Rome experienced a particularly pronounced renovatio movement, which was related to the Carolingian Renaissance in the Frankish Empire. Through its role as protectorate of the papacy, the Frankish Empire was closely linked to Rome, which, despite its decline since the Migration Period, was still considered the caput mundi, the head of the world. In the years 774, 780/781, and on the occasion of his imperial coronation in 800, Charlemagne himself stayed in Rome for extended periods.

Since the latter had conquered the Lombard kingdom in 774, rich cultural influences flowed northward. The illuminations of Charlemagne's court school show similarities with Lombard works, and the idea of commissioning magnificent manuscripts, new to Frankish kings, may have been based on models at the Lombard court in Pavia. 

Development of Carolingian book illumination

There is no single, unified Carolingian style. Instead, three branches emerged, each tracing its origins to a variety of painting schools. Two court painting schools were active at Charlemagne's Aachen court around 800 and are referred to as the "Court School" and the "Palace School," respectively. Distinctive workshop styles developed from these, particularly in Reims, Metz, and Tours. These styles rarely remained productive for more than two decades and were heavily dependent on the respective scriptorium tradition, the size and quality of the existing library, and the personality of the donor. A third style, largely independent of the court schools, continued insular book illumination as the Franco-Saxon School and dominated book illumination from the end of the 9th century.

Both courtly painting schools have in common a direct engagement with the formal language of late antiquity and an effort to achieve a previously unknown clarity of page imagery. While Insular and Merovingian book illumination was characterized by abstract braided patterns and schematic animal ornamentation, Carolingian art revived classical ornamentation with the egg-and-dart pattern, the palmette, the vine tendril, and the acanthus. In figurative painting, artists strove for a comprehensible representation of anatomy and physiology, the three-dimensionality of bodies and spaces, and the effects of light on surfaces. The element of probability in particular overcame the preceding schools, whose descriptive representations, unlike their abstract paintings, were “unsatisfactory, not to say ridiculous”.

The clear order of book illumination was only one part of the Carolingian Reformation of the book industry. It formed a conceptual unity with the careful editing of model editions of the biblical books and the development of a uniform, clear script, the Carolingian minuscule. In addition, the entire canon of ancient scripts appeared—primarily as decorative and structuring elements—such as the uncial and half-uncial.

Types of illustrated books and iconographic motifs

Through the combination of text and image, the book acquired special significance as an instrument for spreading the idea of renovatio in the empire. At the center of the reform efforts towards a uniform regulation of the liturgy was the Gospel Book. The Psalter was the first type of prayer book. From about the middle of the 9th century, the range of books to be illustrated expanded to include the full Bible and the Sacramentary. The Admonitio generalis of 789 expressly entrusted the execution of these liturgical books only to experienced hands, perfectae aetatis homines.

The main decorations of the Gospels were depictions of the four Evangelists. The Maiestas Domini, the image of Christ enthroned, is initially rare, and images of the Virgin Mary and other saints are almost non-existent throughout the Carolingian period. In 794, the Synod of Frankfurt dealt with the Byzantine iconoclasm and banned the veneration of images, but assigned the role of instruction and instruction to painting. The Libri Carolini, whose author was probably Theodulf of Orléans, are considered to be the official statement of the circle around Charlemagne in this sense. An early Maiestas Domini depiction appears in the Godescalc Gospel Book of 781/783, i.e. several years before this position was established. After a Frankish synod relaxed the regulations in 825, the range of subjects worthy of depiction expanded, particularly in the schools of Metz and Tours. Since the middle of the 9th century, the motif of the Maiestas Domini was a central motif, particularly in the Touronian Gospels and Bibles and, together with the images of the Evangelists, belonged to a fixed iconological illustration cycle. In the Godescalc Gospel Book, the motif of the Fountain of Life appears for the first time and is repeated in the Soissons Gospel Book. Another new motif was the Adoration of the Lamb. Canon tables with arcade frames are an integral part of the Gospel Books. Throne architecture was characteristic of the court school of Charlemagne, and is missing from the works of the palace school and the schools of Reims and Tours. The book illustrators adopted the initial page from insular book illumination.

A central motif since the time of Louis the Pious was the image of the ruler, which appears above all in manuscripts from Tours. In view of the programmatic appropriation of the Roman heritage in the sense of renewal and thus the legitimization of Carolingian rule, this motif took on particular significance. From a comparison of the images with descriptions in contemporary literature, such as Einhard's Vita Karoli Magni and Thegan's Gesta Hludowici, it can be concluded that they are typological portraits in the spirit and model of Roman ruler portraits, enriched with naturalistic, portrait-like elements. The sacred significance of the imperial office is addressed in almost all Carolingian ruler portraits, which accordingly appear particularly in liturgical books. The hand of God often appears above the rulers. The sacred connotation is most clearly seen in a depiction of the haloed, cross-bearing Louis the Pious as an illustration of De laudibus sanctae crucis by Rabanus Maurus. 

Apart from liturgical books, relatively few secular books were illustrated, among which copies of late antique constellation cycles play a special role. Among these, an Aratea manuscript from around 830–840 stands out, which was later copied several times. The Bernese Physiologus (Reims, c. 825–850) is the most important of a series of illustrated manuscripts of the natural sciences of the Physiologus. An important textbook for the Middle Ages was Boethius 's De institutione arithmetica libri II, which was illuminated in Tours for Charles the Bald in the 840s. Among the illustrated works of classical literature, manuscripts with comedies by Terence, which were created around 825 in Lotharingia and in the second half of the 9th century in Reims, are particularly noteworthy, as is a manuscript with poems by Prudentius, which possibly comes from the monastery of Reichenau and was illustrated in the last third of the 9th century.

Everyday scenes are particularly numerous embedded in psalm illustrations, for example in the Utrecht, the Stuttgart and the Golden Psalter of St. Gallen. Other books, such as a martyrology by Wandalbert of Prüm (Reichenau, third quarter of the 9th century), occasionally contain monthly pictures showing peasant activities throughout the year, dedication pictures or depictions of monks writing. Historiography and legal texts played no role in Carolingian book illumination. Vernacular literature was only codified in a few exceptional cases and did not enjoy the esteem that would have been required for illumination. This even applies to sophisticated biblical poetry such as Otfried's Book of Gospels.

Book illumination at the time of Charlemagne

Merovingian book culture, monastic and strongly influenced by insular book illustration, initially continued unaffected by the change in the Frankish ruling dynasty. This changed abruptly at the end of the 8th century, when Charlemagne (reigned 768–814) gathered the most important figures of his time at his court in Aachen to reform the entire intellectual life. After his journey to Italy in 780/781, Charlemagne appointed the Briton Alcuin, whom he had met in Parma and who had previously headed the school in York, as head of the court school. Other scholars at Charlemagne's court included Peter the Deacon and Theodulf of Orléans, who also taught Charlemagne's children and young noblemen at court. After a few years, many of these scholars were sent to important places in the Frankish Empire as abbots or bishops, for the idea of renewal was linked to the desire for the intellectual achievements of the court to radiate out over the entire vast empire. Thus, Theodulf was appointed Bishop of Orléans, and Alcuin was appointed Bishop of Tours in 796. Einhard took over the direction of the court school for him.

Around 800, two very different groups of magnificent manuscripts were created at Charlemagne's court for liturgical use in the large monasteries and bishoprics. The two groups of manuscripts are referred to either as the "Ada Group" or "Group of the Vienna Coronation Gospels" after outstanding works, or as the "Court School" or "Palace School of Charlemagne". The illustrated texts of both groups of works are closely related, while the illustrations themselves have no stylistic similarities. The relationship between the two painting schools has therefore long been controversial. For the group of the Vienna Coronation Gospels, a different patron than Charlemagne has repeatedly been discussed, but the evidence points to a location at the Aachen court. 

The Ada Group or Court School

The first magnificent manuscript that Charlemagne commissioned between 781 and 783, immediately after his trip to Rome, was the Godescalc Evangelistary, named after its scribe. This work may not have been created in Aachen, but in the royal palace of Worms. The large initial page, decorative letters and some of the ornamentation are derived from insular book painting, but nothing is reminiscent of Merovingian book painting. What is new about the illumination are the decorative elements taken from antiquity, the three-dimensional figurative motifs and the script used. The full-page miniatures – the enthroned Christ, the four evangelists and the fountain of life – strive for real physicality and a logical connection to the depicted space and thus had a style-forming effect on the subsequent works of the court school. The text was written in gold and silver ink on purple-dyed parchment.

The manuscripts of the Ada group from the court school, which can certainly be located in Aachen, have in common a conscious engagement with the ancient heritage and a consistent pictorial program. They are probably based primarily on late antique models from Ravenna. In addition to magnificent arcades imitating architectural motifs or gemstone-decorated picture frames and insular-influenced decorative initial pages, the decoration includes large-scale images of the Evangelists, which have varied widely from the Ada manuscript onwards. For the first time since Roman times, the figures with clearly contoured internal drawings are given physicality through swelling, rich robes, and the space is given three-dimensionality. The images have a certain horror vacui, the fear of emptiness, in common; for example, expansive throne landscapes fill the pages with the Evangelist images.

The first part of the Ada manuscript and a Gospel book from Saint-Martin-des-Champs were created around 790. This was followed by the Dagulf Psalter, also named after its scribe and written before 795. According to the dedicatory poem, it was commissioned by Charlemagne himself and intended as a gift to Pope Adrian I. The Saint-Riquier Gospel Book and the Harley Gospel Book in London can be dated to the end of the 8th century, the Soissons Gospel Book and the second part of the Ada manuscript around 800, and the Lorsch Gospel Book around 810. A fragment of a Gospel Book in London concludes the series of illustrated manuscripts from the court school. After the death of Charlemagne, it apparently dissolved. As decisive as its influence had been up to that point, it seems to have left little trace for book illumination in the following decades. Remaining effects can be found in Fulda, Mainz, Salzburg and the area around Saint-Denis, as well as in some scriptoria in northeastern Franconia. 

The group of the Viennese Coronation Gospels or Palace School

A second group of manuscripts, probably also located in Aachen, but clearly different from the illustrations of the court school, is more in the Hellenistic-Byzantine tradition and is grouped around the Vienna Coronation Gospels, which was produced around 800. According to legend, Otto III found the magnificent manuscript when he opened the tomb of Charlemagne in the year 1000. Since then, the manuscript, which is also the most artistically significant of this group of works, was part of the imperial insignia, and the German kings took the coronation oath on the Gospels. In contrast to the court school, the manuscripts of the Vienna Coronation Gospels group are attributed to a palace school of Charlemagne. Four other manuscripts belong to this group: the Treasury Gospels, the Xanten Gospels and a Gospel from Aachen, all of which can be dated to the beginning of the 9th century.

The manuscripts of the group of the Vienna Coronation Gospels have no precursors in northern Europe at that time. The artists must have learned the effortless virtuosity with which the late antique forms were realized in Byzantium, perhaps also in Italy. In comparison with the Ada group of the court school, they lack the horror vacui in particular. The figures of the evangelists, moved by dynamic swings, are depicted in the pose of ancient philosophers. Their powerfully modeled bodies, airy and light-flooded landscapes, as well as mythological personifications and other classical motifs, give the works of this group the atmospheric and illusionistic character of the Hellenistic style of painting.

During Charlemagne's lifetime, the Palace School appears to have been a relatively isolated special case of book illumination, standing in the shadow of the Court School. After Charlemagne's death, however, it was this school of painting that exerted a much stronger influence on Carolingian book illumination than the Ada group.

Book illumination at the time of Louis the Pious

After the death of Charlemagne, court art shifted to Reims under Louis the Pious (reigned 814–840), where in the 820s and early 830s, under Archbishop Ebo, the dynamic, moving pictorial concept of the Viennese Coronation Gospels was particularly well received. Before his appointment to Reims in 816, Ebo was considered the “librarian of the Aachen court” and brought with him the legacy of the Carolingian Renaissance. The Reims artists, rooted in a different painting tradition, transformed the already lively style of the palace school into an expressive drawing style with nervous, swirling lines and ecstatically excited figures. The sketchy pictures with their dense, jagged lines show the greatest possible distance from the calm pictorial structure of the Aachen court school. The main works produced in Reims and the nearby Hautvillers Abbey around 825 were the Ebo Gospels and, perhaps by the same artist, the extraordinary Utrecht Psalter, illustrated with uncolored pen and ink drawings, as well as the Bernese Physiologus and the Blois Gospels. The 166 illustrations of the Utrecht Psalter show numerous everyday scenes alongside paraphrasing illustrations of the psalms.

In addition to the imperial court, the large imperial monasteries and bishoprics' residences with powerful scriptoria gradually regained their prominence. From 796 until his death in 804, Alcuin, previously a religious and cultural advisor to Charlemagne, was delegated as abbot to St. Martin in Tours to bring the idea of renewal to this important city of the Frankish Empire. Under the iconoclastic Alcuin, the scriptorium flourished, but the manuscripts initially lacked illustrations, so that the so-called Alcuin Bibles were only adorned with remarkable figurative illumination during the time of his successors.

Under Archbishop Drogo (823–855), an illegitimate son of Charlemagne, the Metz School continued the tradition of Charlemagne's court school. The Drogo Sacramentary, created around 842, is the main work of this workshop, whose work includes, among other things, an astronomical and computational textbook. The original achievement of the Metz School is the historiated initial, that is, the decorative letter populated with scenic depictions, which was to become the most distinctive element of all medieval book illumination.

The court schools of Charles the Bald and Emperor Lothar

After the division of the Frankish Empire by the Treaty of Verdun in 843, Carolingian book illumination reached its peak in the circle of the now West Frankish King Charles the Bald (reigned 840–877, emperor 875–877). The head of Charlemagne's court school, sometimes called the Corbie School after the importance of Corbie Abbey for book art of the era, was Johannes Scotus Eriugena, who as an art theorist was a pioneering figure in the aesthetic conception of the entire Middle Ages. The monastery in Tours assumed a leading role in book illumination under the abbots Adalhard (834–843) and Vivian (844–851). From around 840, huge illustrated full Bibles were produced, some of which were intended for new monasteries. Among them was the Moutier-Grandval Bible around 840 and the Vivian Bible in 846. After the peace treaty between Charlemagne and his brother in 849, the monastery also maintained close ties with Emperor Lothar I. The Tours School reached its artistic peak with the Lothar Gospels. The Tours workshop was under the direct and strong influence of the Reims School. The Tours scriptorium was the only one of the entire Carolingian period that remained productive for several generations. However, its heyday ended abruptly with its destruction by the Normans in 853.

While Tours was previously considered the site of Charles the Bald's court school, after the destruction of the monastery, St. Denis near Paris probably took over this role, where Charles the Bald became lay abbot in 867. Some particularly richly decorated manuscripts date from the period after 850, including a psalter (after 869) and a sacramentary fragment. The most magnificent manuscripts are the Codex aureus of St. Emmeram, which was illuminated around 870 on the orders of Charles the Bald, and the Bible of St. Paul, written around the same time in gold ink on a purple ground, with 24 full-page miniatures and 36 initial pages.

The court school of Emperor Lothar was probably located in Aachen. It adopted the style of Charlemagne's palace school and apparently had close contact with the Reims scriptorium, as the Gospel Book from Cleves shows.

Book painting outside the court schools

While the most important book illustrations were created at the Carolingian courts or in abbeys and bishoprics closely associated with the court, many monastic studios maintained their own traditions. Some were influenced by insular book illumination or they continued the Merovingian style. In some cases, independent achievements emerged. The book art of the Corbie monastery had already played an important role in book illumination in the Merovingian period, and the monastery's script is considered the basis of Carolingian minuscule. A psalter from Corbie (around 800) is noteworthy; its figure initials cannot be associated with either courtly Carolingian or insular book illumination, and it precedes Romanesque book illumination. The richly decorated Psalter of Montpellier, which was probably intended for a member of the Bavarian ducal family, was created in the Mondsee monastery as early as 788.

A special case are the Bibles and Gospels written in the first quarter of the 9th century under Bishop Theodulf in Orléans. Along with Alcuin, Theodulf was the leading theologian at the court of Charlemagne and probably the author of the Libri Carolini. Even more than Alcuin, he was critical of images, and so the codices from his scriptorium are lavishly designed, magnificent manuscripts dyed purple and written with gold and silver ink, but their pictorial decoration is limited to canon tables. Even a Gospel book from the monastery of Fleury, which belonged to the diocese of Orléans, contains, in addition to 15 canon tables, only a miniature with the symbols of the evangelists.

The Fulda school of painting was apparently one of the few to follow the Aachen court school. This dependence is evident in the Fulda Gospel Book in Würzburg from the middle of the 9th century. It also borrowed from Greek models; for example, the haloed figure of Louis the Pious in a copy of De laudibus sanctae crucis by Rabanus Maurus is completely surrounded by the text as a picture poem, thus referring to depictions by Constantine the Great. Rabanus Maurus, a pupil of Alcuin, was abbot of the Fulda monastery until 842.

The transition to Ottonian art

After the death of Charles the Bald in 877, a barren period began for the visual arts that lasted around a hundred years. Book illumination continued only in the monasteries - usually at a comparatively modest level - and the courts of the Carolingian rulers no longer played a role. With the shift in the balance of power, the East Frankish monasteries became increasingly important. The initial style of the monastery of St. Gallen in particular, but also the book illuminations of the monasteries of Fulda and Corvey, played an intermediary role to Ottonian book illumination. Other monastic centers of the East Frankish Empire were the scriptoria in Lorsch, Regensburg, Würzburg, Mondsee, Reichenau, Mainz and Salzburg. The monasteries near the Alps in particular maintained close artistic exchange with northern Italy.

In what is now northern France, the Franco-Saxon (meaning Frankish-Anglo-Saxon) school had developed, increasingly from the second half of the 9th century onwards. Its book decoration remained largely limited to ornamentation and again drew on insular book illumination. The monastery of Staint-Amand played a pioneering role, while the abbeys of St. Vaast in Arras, Saint-Omer and St. Bertin also appeared. An early example of this style is a psalter from Saint-Omer written for Louis the German in the second quarter of the 9th century. The most important manuscript of the Franco-Saxon school is the Second Bible of Charles the Bald, which was created between 871 and 873 in the monastery of Saint-Amand.

It was not until around 970 that a new, quite different style of book illumination emerged under the changed auspices of the now Saxon ruling house. Ottonian art is also called the " Ottonic Renaissance " in analogy to the Carolingian art, but it rarely drew directly on ancient models. Rather, influenced by Byzantine art, it referred to Carolingian book illumination. Ottonian book illumination developed its own distinct, homogeneous formal language, but its origins were in adaptations of Carolingian works. For example, the Maiestas Domini of the Lorsch Gospels was copied exactly, albeit in a reduced form, in the late 10th century at Reichenau in the Petershausen Sacramentary and in the Gero Codex.

Sourced from Wikipedia